[Talk-us] parcel data in OSM

[Steve Coast]

On Dec 31, 2012, at 3:21 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On 31.12.2012 06:49, Steve Coast wrote:
>> Therefore I don't see why each
>> country or state (i.e. Mass. and their own imports) can't have it's
>> own solution which reflects the cultural realities there.
> 
> Your argument seems to be, essentially, that the cultural reality "there" is that they have no need for a crowdsourced map. If that is so, then maybe we should just accept that, and move on to places where there is such a need?

I'm not saying we don't need a crowdsourced map, I'm saying that for address data as the last piece of the puzzle, we should import to save waiting a billion years, and then fix it where there are people interested in doing so.

> When you say that "Waze has not failed", I wouldn't know - Waze has zero publicity where I live, and their website offers a choice of "United States - Italy - Spain - Israel - Rest of world". It may be a big thing in the States but over here it usually doesn't even get a mention when people are talking about map data.

Waze, last time I looked, was 5 times larger than OSM. Today, probably 10.

> You're also talking of "ten or twenty" crowd-sourced maps of the world, and making it sound like a threat to OSM.

It is. There may be no need for OSM if there are lots of crowd sourced maps which have better support. I would like people to use OSM. Today it's hard to convince any consumer they should do so over google or waze.

> I've heard that quite often. "If only we import just a little more, then our map will suddenly cross some usability threshold and we'll have more users contributing quality data than we can wish for".
> 
> I guess it's a matter of faith. I can't prove you wrong but there's no evidence to support that hope either.

I'm ambivalent about pretty much any other import apart from addressing. I see addressing, in the USA, as a fundamental thing worth pulling in. From there, we fix it up just like we did with the road network.

If you want people to use the map, it needs addressing.

Steve